'Enjoy your freedom while you can.' Kirsten Bridegan sends a message to ... trends now
Kirsten Bridegan has a message to anyone who was involved in her husband Jared's brutal killing and still at large – 'Enjoy your freedom while you can.'
Because the net, she is sure, is closing.
It is almost a year since father of four, Microsoft executive, Jared Bridegan, 33, was shot dead in a callous and 'targeted' attack.
He was moments from his ex-wife Shanna, 36, and her husband, Mario Fernandez, 34, having just dropped off the twins they shared at her then marital home.
His daughter Bexley, then two, was strapped in the back of his car. Kirsten was home with their recently born second daughter, London, then six months.
His final words to his wife, now widow, were 'I'll be home soon.'
Thursday, Kirsten, 31, spoke to DailyMail.com alongside her brother-in-law Adam Bridegan, 36, as they digest the most significant development yet in the investigation into Jared's murder.
Kirsten Bridegan tells DailyMail.com that she has a message for anyone involved in her husband's killing: 'Enjoy your freedom while you can'
Father of four, Microsoft executive, Jared Bridegan, 33, was shot dead in a callous and 'targeted' attack last year
It was less than 36 hours since Jacksonville Beach Police announced the arrest of Henry Tenon, 61, now charged with second degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder, accessory to a capital felony and felony child abuse.
In that time, it has emerged that Tenon was a tenant of Fernandez a connection that, Kirsten describes as 'sickening.' It's also been claimed that Tenon would carry out jobs for Fernandez at the landlord's various properties.
Henry Tenon, 61, is charged with murder in the death of Jared Bridegan, 33
Kirsten said, 'We were fortunate, we were informed a bit ahead of time that they had arrested someone. It's hard to describe [that moment] Your stomach just drops. You have a whole bunch of questions. How did you find this person? What do they look like?'
Kirsten asked to see a picture of Tenon – a man of whom she had never heard – before police gave a press conference to announce the news yesterday.
The revelation that he had a connection to Fernandez is information that she and the rest of Bridegan's family are still processing.
She said, 'It's sickening because we do know Mario and so the fact that Henry is connected to him. It's pretty sickening.'
Kirsten has always been certain that whoever shot her husband – lured to get out of his car in a quiet stretch of road by a tire left there as a trap – was not acting alone.
Yesterday State Attorney Melissa Nelson doubled down on that with the assertion that authorities know Tenon was not a sole actor but a co-conspirator with another person or persons.
According to Adam that is difficult knowledge to deal with. He said, 'Yeah it is very sickening, That we have to attend a press conference where it's announced that my brother was murdered and that there's a conspiracy behind it.
'We have no idea how far that conspiracy went, how deep that it. And to know that this individual or these individuals are currently living among us? It's scary.'
Tenon's landlord since 2017 was Mario Fernandez, 34 – husband of Bridegan's ex-wife Shanna Gardner-Fernandez, 36
Shanna has now moved across country to West Richland, Washington, while her second husband Mario remains in Florida. She has taken the twins she shares with Bridegan
She spoke as Tenon's former roommate told the New York Post that Tenon worked for Fernandez and had a girlfriend who received treatment from a methadone clinic.
'Henry seemed like a quiet guy, up early every morning for work, just doing his thing,' the roommate said. I know he did little jobs for Mario here and there when he asked him to.'
He said police visited Tenon's home in Jacksonville several times after the suspected killer was arrested in August last year on separate charges.
'They kicked the door down one time. They turned the whole place over. They were looking for a gun, his truck, they took all of his clothes.'
Bridegan's callous killing on February 16, 2022, shocked the quiet oceanside town of Jacksonville Beach. It was the only homicide in the town that year.
The fact that his little girl, Bexley, bore witness to the horror, sitting in her car seat for a full three minutes before emergency services arrived only added to the tragedy.
Today Bexley is three and, Kirsten said, still impacted by what she saw that February evening, but she is 'moving in the right direction.'
She explained, 'At first, she talked a lot about things that she heard and saw. And now it's progressed more into memories of dad, or you know, 'My dad died but he's in heaven.'
'We still have moments. There are days when she will just break down and we will just hold each other. She